Loving God of all mercy, grant that this dear reader may know of Your love and care for her/him in ways that are uplifting; in Christ Jesus I pray, amen.
Our text for today comes from Deuteronomy 30: 15 Look at what I've done for you today: I've placed in front of you Life and Good Death and Evil. 16 And I command you today: Love God, your God. Walk in his ways. Keep his commandments, regulations, and rules so that you will live, really live, live exuberantly, blessed by God, your God, in the land you are about to enter and possess. 17 But I warn you: If you have a change of heart, refuse to listen obediently, and willfully go off to serve and worship other gods, 18 you will most certainly die. You won't last long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. 19 I call Heaven and Earth to witness against you today: I place before you Life and Death, Blessing and Curse. Choose life so that you and your children will live. 20 And love God, your God, listening obediently to him, firmly embracing him. Oh yes, he is life itself, a long life settled on the soil that God, your God, promised to give your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. (The Message)
What an assembly occurred on that day. The Exodus from Egypt was at its forty year end. The original leader, Moses, was dead, and the youthful, new leader, Joshua, probably with much fear and excitement, shares these words, inspired by God, to those who were about to cross into the Promised Land. "Friends, we have a choice; after 40 years of wandering in the desert we find ourselves at this wonderful and critical point. God has been trying to form us as His people and it's up to us to decide: Do we want to live? And not just live, but live fully and abundantly with God and with each other? Then, choose that which God has been trying to share with us, and we, you and I, will be blessed. If you choose the other option, you will die. Our choice is simple, Life or Death, Blessing or Curse? Which will you choose? Hint, I'm choosing life through God." The same can be said for us when we come to the point where we decide to become believers and we commit our lives to God. We don't look back to what we've left behind, it's all desert, desolate and a place to which, like yesterday, we cannot return even if we wanted, but who would want to do such a foolish thing? The point where we are is a point of life and blessing with God, choose to walk forward!
And forward we walk, dear friends, trusting God, believing what God's promises are for us at this point of our lives. The best is yet to come!
PRAYER: Loving God, take my hand and lead me on, upward and onward, to the place of life and blessing. Let me leave behind the deserts of yesterday, those places where it was difficult to find life. I ask this in Christ Jesus' precious name, amen.
Have a great and blessed day in the Lord.
Eradio Valverde
